"He was smart to run."

--Sam Puckett

i'M Already Sick of This – Chap. i

It was one of those things that seemed far enough out of the range of the accepted usual that I half didn't believe it would actually happen. But evidently Sam's mom didn't feel the same way about what passed for the accepted usual, and evidently didn't feel all that strongly about the rigors of following the speed limit either. She wasted no time in driving my impending doom over; she didn't even bother to walk Sam up to our door.

And then she was there.

And she looked like crap. Which was probably the relative equivalent of what I looked like too.

And that's saying something, because really, being completely honest for a moment (in a never-tell-under-pain-of-death kind of way), I generally find her to be at least passably pretty. If she wasn't, I probably wouldn't be in this predicament and we would've been perfectly happy to keep our saliva to ourselves.

So I found myself feeling ridiculously awkward as I sat at the kitchen table, trying not to think about anything related to saliva (is there a nice word for spit?). This was done while also trying to choke down the legendary Benson cough syrup (which can be found in some stores labeled as Castor oil) because it seemed to be a plausible excuse for not having to look at her.

Sam quietly came in, her beat up sleeping bag under one arm and a plastic Mall-Mart sack of clothes in the other.

Seeing her there like that at this hour brought all kinds of different feelings to my gut, beyond the whole fearing for my life stuff. It was almost like elementary again, when I used to have kids come over to my place or vice versa. That had been long enough ago that it was a nostalgic sort of feeling; I can't remember the last time when someone spent the night at my place.

And the chief reason for that immediately swooped down on Sam. My mom wasted no time in giving all sorts of sympathies and promises, to which Sam responded civilly and even graciously, but with a definite note of tiredness.

I hunkered down in what sparse shelter my cup of family legacy offered, resisting a grimace as my mom went on and on. I was just glad that I had convinced her not to wear the viral masks she stocked, at least for now. But it wasn't as if this sort of thing was surprising.

The last time I'd gotten sick it had nearly killed me (and not because I'd actually been that sick, I mean it had only been a minor chest cold). My mom had even put the priest on speed dial in case he needed to administer emergency last rites to me. We aren't even Catholic for crying out loud!

I had to hand it to Sam though, not only was she doing a near flawless job at keeping the wane but consistently polite smile on her face as my mom doddered on, but she was also doing a perfect imitation of having a good excuse for looking everywhere else but at me.

"—I really do appreciate this, Mrs. Benson," Sam said, valiantly trying to break into my mom's rambling, which was the showing unhealthy signs of veering off into a SARS tangent.

"Oh, and you poor dear." My mom wrapped her arm around Sam as she led her away from the door, "I just hope that your mother doesn't catch it too. She seemed awfully concerned."

"Yeah, it would be too bad if her or Snickers caught it," Sam said. Fortunately mom didn't seem to catch the sarcasm.

"But you must be so tired, dear. Freddie, come and show Samantha where your room is. We have an air mattress already laid out for you and—" I caught the significant look she shot Sam's admittedly fairly ratty sleeping bag. "—Blankets, we have lots of blankets ... so don't worry about—"

"No, that's okay," Sam hugged her sleeping bag a little tighter to herself, "I really don't need them."

I felt something.

"Of course not, sweetie," mom answered in a blatantly appeasing way. I knew that tone well enough that it wouldn't surprise me all that terribly if Sam's sleeping bag somehow happened to accidentally find its way into a dumpster—or a vat of bleach. "Now Freddie will show you where the bathroom and his room are. I'll be there in a few minutes."

I stood up and nearly flinched when Sam turned her haggard look at me for the first time. But she merely gestured, not quite impatiently, for me to lead on.

My mom was just finishing calling after us something about bringing another puke dispenser when I heard Sam mutter from behind me as we walked down the hall.

"You've got a room? I always thought they just plugged you in at night."

But it was done in such a weary way that it made me feel awful. And not for the reasons her insults usually did.

It was and wasn't all that odd that Sam had never seen my room. Not that there was much to see, or reason for her to have before. The air mattress that we'd set up took up most of the open space. My fairly rushed and honestly quite panicked rearranging of my tech equipment left a lot to be desired, but I thought I'd done a decent job. That was considering I had just found out that the most vicious girl in my life, the one I'd just gotten sick due to a hormone induced situation of awkwardness, was going to be spending an indefinite amount of time within easy killing distance of me.

So I had been admittedly expecting a lot more than the emotionless way she reviewed my room as she came in behind me and dropped her things on the air mattress. I think I did catch something about "Radioshack" under her breath, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it had been an unconscious comment for her.

I almost made the mistake of saying something inconsequential as I fidgeted. I had no idea what to do, much less say. She was just standing there, staring down and slowly getting her stuff laid out.

But she wasn't inflicting bodily or verbal harm on me, so that could be taken as a good sign, right? I'd more or less envisioned that our whole oral contact issue would be an off topic subject, punishable by death or worse. But this was ... promising? Maybe?

For the first time I experienced the possibility that we might actually be able to talk about this whole mess calmly and rationally, like normal friends might. And it was—not crazy. Actually, as I sat there in what was for all intents and purposes probably the most awkward silence of my life, I realized that I did want to talk about it. To someone at least, maybe not necessarily her. But maybe we could just talk, sort it out. Make it not so ridiculously confusing, or maybe even—

Sam turned and walked out the door.

—Or just walk away without a word. That worked too. I was down with that, in fact—

The bathroom door slammed shut.

—Whoops. I'd forgotten to show her where the bathroom was. But that would've required words, or at least coherent gesturing, which she didn't seem to be all that amiable towards. And besides, she'd apparently located it without too much trouble, and I belatedly realized that she'd taken some clothes with her.

But then my mom was back, swooping in with all the unnecessary supplies she could carry. My head was hurting enough that I went along with whatever she was talking about. By the time I'd taken the quart of medication she made me swallow, I was ready for bed.

Sam came in a couple of minutes later in her pajamas. She got the abbreviated and milder version (without the quart of medication) of what I'd gotten.

And then my mom was wishing us a good night and telling me that she loved me, like it might be the last chance she'd get.

Sam turned over.

Then the lights were off, and keeping irrational thoughts out of my mind became impossible. Like Sam strangling me in my sleep, for starters. It was actually kind of funny that my mom was trusting me alone in my room with a girl, but I guess that just went to show me just how well she understood my relationship with Sam.

As I lay there, I could just barely make out Sam's outline in the little bit of illumination my night light gave off, and I could almost imagine I could see her side softly moving up and down.

Now I realized that if I had wanted to say anything to her, it would've been best before now. Still, it would be easy to just to call it a night and fall asleep; it would be keeping with how open to conversation she seemed to be. But that's not what I wanted.

I had probably been debating just how stupid it would sound to try to strike up a conversation for about ten minutes when it slipped.

"Sam."

I froze, which was quite unnecessary being in the dark and all, but it didn't feel unnecessary. For several long and fairly terrifying heartbeats I held my breath, waiting and nearly hoping that she wasn't awake. After they had passed without any sign from her, I decided that she had already fallen asleep. I was somewhere between relieved and disappointed.

I still wanted, needed to say something. I was definitely not used to this sort of silence between us.

This was important. I had to say something. If I could just decide how I felt about this situation in particular, I could say something about that too.

"I—" I started, a million cheesy scenes from a million cheesy movies about the guy baring his soul to the girl he loves while she was asleep coming to mind. Well, that obviously wasn't the situation here, but it still felt dumb. But it was easy. Maybe I could spare myself a couple decade's worth of psychiatric sessions by just saying everything I could and getting it off my chest.

But in the end I wasn't that brave when it came to Sam, even when she was sleeping.

"... I'm really sorry." I settled for that.

"Just shut up and go to sleep." She shifted a little on the mattress, maybe angrily.

So I spent the next few minutes before doing just that wishing I wasn't so stupid. Or that I was anywhere else but here.

--

They were so warm and soft, so smooth.

I knew that I was supposed to be doing something, but how could I? The only thing that kept flashing through my mind was that I needed to stop, right now, right this second. But I didn't. Somewhere I was also thinking about what else I should be doing.

I'd seen more than enough people kissing in the movies and on TV to know that I should be doing something more. But I just kind of held it there, trying to grab my bearings, shove a couple coherent neurons through so that I could just think. But it was so hard to think when I felt this good. Everything was kind of warm and fuzzy, and fast. My heart was beating so fast.

It wasn't very long, it never was. Both of us couldn't just sit there not moving—And why isn't she moving?

Then, instead of moving away, as she very well should, she moved forward, and kind of off to the side of my mouth. The friction was enough to make everything behind my clenched eyelids light up.

I jerked away.

So it had scared me a little bit. It was a perfectly understandable reaction. She was definitely not supposed to do that.

Where everything had been going fast before, it suddenly sped up, like an out of control carousel.

This isn't how it felt when it happened.

There were words I couldn't understand.

But they weren't what she had actually said at the time. I only could tell this because they felt wrong, and she was standing in front of me looking angry, and livid even. She was shouting at me but I couldn't understand her. Screaming about how stupid I was, how this was wrong, how she could never like me like that. I had ruined everything. But I still couldn't understand the exact words.

I only understood that she was angry at me, and I felt horrible, horrible—

I jerked awake, disturbing the puddle of sweat I was laying in. Everything was burning and my head was pounding.

Sucking in a shaky breath and wishing my throat didn't feel like my tonsils were doing backstrokes in toxic sludge, I rolled over and remembered where I was.

I was in the process of reaching over to my nightstand for the mug of ice water mom had left me when I heard what had probably woken me up.

I cringed as she made a prolonged hurling sound, followed by gagging that was more than loud enough to reach my room. I could faintly see the bathroom light through my half open door.

There were footsteps and plenty of "Sweetie's" as my mom walked by carrying something.

Kicking my blankets away and trying to keep myself from caving into the chills and curling up, I buried my head in my pillow and tried not to hear anymore. I also tried not remember that this wasn't the first time I'd been woken up.

--

Trying to sleep with a bad fever doesn't suck eggs, it sucks rotten eggs. It's that nightmarish span of time that never seems to end. Waking up feeling hot, laying awake feeling horrible, and just wanting to go back to sleep. Then finally going back to sleep and repeating the process in another ten minutes or so. It was even worse this time because I knew that the other occupant in my room wasn't having it quite so good.

When I finally woke to find my door open and enough light to call it morning, with mom down in the kitchen making sounds that meant breakfast and homemade medication, I just lay there staring up at the ceiling for a long time. But eventually all the water I'd drank through the night began to get insistent, and I made to get up.

Big mistake. I swung my feet around a little too quickly, discovering that there was apparently an admission free rock concert going on in my head, a Korean rock concert with no respect for decibel levels or coherency.

But eventually I found myself admitting that I felt sort of better. While allowing my head to settle, I preoccupied myself by 1. waiting for mom to pop in at any moment, 2. staring at Sam, 3. wondering why I had worn socks to bed, and—well okay, staring at Sam mostly.

I had to admit, she looked pretty captivating with a slight frown on her face, breathing deeply and sprawled out all over the mattress. It was kind of refreshing to see her like that. I hoped she would be able to get some relatively peaceful sleep in, and not just because I was thinking of my own lifespan.

She also had this tousled thing going on, which was—kind of ...

I mentally clapped my hands. Welp, better get going.

I made a quick and stealthy exit just before the laws of the universe caught up with me. My mother was all a flurry of morning routines, precautions, and general over do-it's required to kick the day off properly in an under-the-weather Benson household.

"Mom, can you please shut the door?" I was whining by this point, but I'd caved into her every other demand so far. I mean I had agreed to the Hungarian mineral bath, all the while being doused with a massive array of wash ointments and pre-breakfast medications. Bathing at an exactly specified lukewarm temperature actually felt kinda good on my skin, but I was losing my patience with her. "There's a girl in our—"

My ranting was interrupted by a spoonful of something.

"Now Freddie-kins, I know you're not feeling well, but that's no reason to shout," mother said distractedly as she withdrew the spoon from my mouth and reloaded from another bottle, "It's not as if you have to worry about her just walking in without knocking—"

So much for thinking my mom knew Sam at all.

"Besides, you need to be quiet sweetie, you don't want to wake her up. Poor little thing had such a rough night. She deserves a good rest." My mother frowned down at her stack of directions. "Well I'm going to need more ammonia dioxidant—"

"What?" I generally made it a rule not to pry after the things that my mother made me ingest. It was just better that way. But ingesting ammonia of any sort didn't sound all that appealing right now. Or ever really.

"Nothing, dear," my mom said briskly as she stood up and turned for the door. "I'll be back in just a second—Oh! ... my. Samantha dear, you're up."

I jerked my head over and found that Sam was indeed within goggling range of me from the doorway. Not to say that she was goggling me, but looking was bad enough. And she was looking with an almost bland sort of expression.

"Mom!" I shouted, arms frantically working to cover myself. Thank God it was a bubble bath. "Close the door!"

My mom was trying to speak to Sam about something under my shouting as she hastily reached for the door and shut it.

I sat there for a moment, trying to assess the damage.

Okay, Sam just saw me naked. Not really, not totally, but maybe a little bit. Nope, she couldn't have seen much. Not really, just my upper half, which is bad enough, but it's okay as long as it wasn't anything below that. Bubbles? Check. Angle? Check. Nope, I'm good. But still, was that an unimpressed look she'd had? What the heck was that about?

I was still shaken up and feeling vaguely scandalized by the time I made it out to the kitchen table. And no, it hadn't taken me a long time because I was afraid of coming out, my fingers just pruned quickly, thank you very much.

Well, not quite shaken up. I thought I was being quite cool about everything, given the circumstances.

"Sam saw me naked—Sam saw me naked—Sam saw—"

"Freddie? What are you mumbling about?" Mom asked, all morning cheer and obliviousness.

"Nothing," I muttered darkly as I took a seat as far away from an already seated Sam as I could. Sadly, at a three seat table it wasn't all that easy.

I stared down at my optimistic breakfast and toyed with the silverware. The fact that it was a breakfast consisting of food made it optimistic at this point. It wasn't that I had no appetite; in fact, my stomach was feeling fairly stable and maybe even a little hollow. It was the unnerving fact that she was sitting across/next to me.

This whole arrangement was wrong. Just plain astronomically wrong. We had to have spent at least twenty overlapping minutes of us both being awake and we had said the proportional equivalent of nothing to each other.

So I did the dumb thing and furtively glanced up. Luckily she didn't catch it. She was just staring down into whatever passed as my mom's anti-vomiting mush, pushing it around with her spoon.

I put my head over onto my hand and stifled a sigh. The rest of our breakfast without breakfast passed much the same way. Mom rushed in and out of my sphere of consciousness a few times with illness related issues and I briefly caught Sam's eyes exactly twice.

Yeah, I was being stupid about it, but I could go on forever about how this whole situation was wrong. Sure she never would be a morning person, but Sam Puckett was always supposed to have something to say to me. She certainly had ample ammunition given the whole tub incident of fifteen minutes ago.

It kind of scared me how much I'd come to need to hear her talk when she was around. While I normally probably would've thought need would be kind of a strong word, I'd probably also never thought I would feel this terrible about her being quiet.

Cruel irony for sure.

It kept making me remember the nightmare I'd had last night of our little lip to lip fiasco. I knew it had just been a dream, that it hadn't actually happened like that, but that left me wishing that I knew how it had happened. And feeling pretty lousy besides.

She left without saying anything a few minutes before I was going to deem it safe to excuse myself.

Then I did let myself sigh out loud. I also made myself choke down a few mouthfuls of breakfast, because I was actually feeling kind of hungry.

After that I plopped down on the sofa and turned on the television. There was nothing but little kids shows on, which reminded me that it was a school day. Right now all of my friends were at school, blissfully unaware of the situation I was in. Carly probably didn't even know what was going on yet. I thought about calling her during lunch, but that was several hours away yet.

My mom said something about having to make a supply run to the pharmacy. Yeah, yeah, I knew all the speed dial numbers. Yeah I promised to call her immediately if I began to feel even slightly worse. Then she was gone, and I was contemplating dozing off in front of Nora the Explorer when she picked her moment.

Something soft and square but moving at a murderous velocity smashed into the side of my face, far enough around to make my nose hurt. I was reeling off the sofa with my arm vaguely held up as I tried to form a question when it came again. And again and again and then Sam followed me down to the floor, bringing her assailing sofa pillow with her.

"Miserable—" Smack. "Little—" Thwack. "Germ covered—"

"Sam!" Okay, I admit I probably sounded a little pathetic.

"—Dork!" She finished, the pillow reluctantly coming to a stop as she sat there on top of me, breathing hard and glaring down at me.

Well, at least she was talking to me.

"Listen," I started in a placating voice, "I really am sorry and—"

"Yeah, you said that already," she muttered as she stood up a little shakily. She put a hand to her head. "I feel better. I feel like puking again, but I feel better."

"Glad I could help," I said sarcastically as I tenderly probed at the red half of my face. She started to walk towards the bathroom and I quickly tried to gather myself together. "Hey, wait. Could you just—wait for a minute? Listen, I just want to ... talk about—"

"Don't care." She distractedly waved her hand behind her as she weaved her way down the hall. Her steps were a little back and forth, and as I watched, other things went back and forth, and side to—

I violently shook my head, immediately regretting doing that not just because I'd just been mercilessly mauled by a cushion.

This is going to be a long stretch of miserable.

Stupid hormones anyway.

--

AN: Made a few corrections, as I just realized that isn't picking up my narrative breaks. Hopefully it makes a little more sense now.